PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 




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pwttjADELPHIa: 

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PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 



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PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1892. 



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Copyright, 1892, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 



Shelley, Percy Bysshe, one of the greatest of 
English poets, was born on 4th August 1792, at 
Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, the eldest 
child of Timothy Shelley and his wife Elizabeth, 
daughter of Charles Pilfold of Effingham, Surrey. 
The family was old and honourable. Bysshe 
Shelley, the poet's grandfather, married two 
heiresses, acquired a great property, and in 1806 
received a baronetcy ; in 1815 he died. Percy was 
a boy of much sensibility, quick imagination, and 
generous heart ; physically of a refined type of 
beauty, blue-eyed, golden-haired. At ten years 
old he became a pupil of Dr Greenlaw's at Sion 
House School, Isleworth, where he made some pro- 
gress in classics, listened with delight to lectures 
on natural science, and endured much rough hand- 
ling from his schoolfellows. In 1804 he passed to 
Eton, where Dr Goodall was then head-master. He 
continued his study of the classics, read eagerly 
Lucretius and Pliny, became a disciple of the 18th- 
century sceptical and revolutionary writers, pored 
over Godwin's Political Justice, filled his imagina- 
tion with the wonders of modern science, resisted 
the system of school-fagmng, and held aloof from 
the throng of the schoolboys, who in turn made 
him the object of systematic persecution. While 
still at Eton he wrote a crude romance, in the 
manner of M. G. Lewis, which was published with 
the title Zastrozzi in April 1810. Befcne the close 
of the year a second romance, St Irin/ne, or the 
Rosier iician, appeared ; it is as absurd as its pre- 
decessor in its sentimental extravagance, its pseudo- 
passion, and mock sublimity. He assisted his 
cousin Thomas Medwin in a long poem on the 
subject of The Waiulcring Jew (1810), and issued 



4 PERCY BVSSHE SHELLEY, 

with some fellow-rhymer a volume of verse (now 
known only through reviews), Original Poetry by 
Victor and Cazire. Possibly his collaborator was 
his cousin Harriet Grove, whom Shelley loved with 
a boy's passion. Her parents, alanned by Shelley's 
religious scepticism, put a stop to the correspond- 
ence between the cousins. In April 1810 Shelley 
matriculated at University College, Oxford, and 
in Michaelmas term entered on residence. His 
chief friend was a student from Durham, Thomas 
Jefferson Hogg, who has left a most vivid account 
of Shelley's Oxford life. Hogg was shrewd, sar- 
castic, uniinpassioned, and withal a genuine lover 
of literature. He aided Shelley in putting forth 
a slender volume of poems, originally written by 
Shelley with a serious intention, now retouched 
with a view to burlesque — Posthiunous Fragments 
of Margaret Nicholson — the pretended authoress 
being a mad washerwoman who had attempted the 
life of the king. In February 1811 a small pam- 
phlet by Shelley, entitled Tlte Necessity of Atheism, 
was printed. When it was offered for sale in 
Oxford, the college autliorities conceived it their 
duty to interfere ; Shelley and Hogg were interro- 
gated respecting its authorship, and having refused 
to reply, were expelled from University College 
(March 25, 1811) for ccmtumacy and for declining 
to disavow the pamphlet'. For a time the friends 
lived together in London lodgings ; then Hogg- 
departed to the country and Shelley remained 
alone. In his solitude he found some pleasure in 
the society of a schoolfellow of his sisters at Clap- 
ham, Harriet Westbrook, a fresh and pretty girl of 
sixteen, daughter of a retired coffee-house keeper. 
She moved under the tutelage of an unmarried 
sister nearly twice her own age. WJien summer 
came Slielley was with cousins in Wales ; letters 
reached him from Harriet in London complaining 
of domestic persecution, and speaking of suicide as 
a possilde means of escape ; a letter followed in 
which she threw herself on Shelley's protection, 
and proposed to fly with him from her home. 
Shelley hastened to see her, but at the same time 
assured a cousin that l»e did not love Harriet, 
though he was prepared to devote himself to her 
through a sentiment of chivalry. On meeting him 
she avowed her passion, ami he left her with a 
promise tliat if she summoned him he would come 
at her call and make her his. The summons came 
speedily ; Shelley and Harriet, aged nineteen and 
sixteen, took coach for Edinburgh, and were there 



PERCY BVSSHE SHELLEY. 5 

formally united as man and wife on 28th August 
1811. He assured his bride that, in accordance 
with principles which he firmly held, the union of 
man and wife might be dissolved as soon as ever 
it ceased to contribute to their mutual happiness. 

Coming from Edinburgh to York, where Hogg 
resided, the you pp; m-nr ripil pair were joined by 
Eliza Westbrook, the elder sister. Ill conduct of 
Hogg towards Harriet caused a temporary aliena- 
tion between the friends. The Shelleys with Eliza 
moved to Keswick, where ISouthey s presence was 
an attraction. Southey Avas kind and helpful, but 
his lack of revolutionary ardour and his indifl'er- 
ence to metaphysical speculation displeased Shelley. 
The young enthusiast found a monitor more to his 
liking in Godwin, with whom he now corresponded 
as a disciple with a master. To apply at once his 
ideas of reforming the world he resolved to \'isit 
Ireland, and there advocate Catholic emancipation 
and Repeal of the Union. On reaching Dublin he 
printed and scattered abroad an Address to the 
Irish People, M'ritten at Keswick. This was soon 
followed by a second pamphlet. Proposals for an 
Association of Philanthropists. He spoke at a 
large public meeting from the same platform with 
O'Connell, and made the acquaintance of Curran. 
Discouraged by the small results of his eflbrts, and 
yielding to Godwin's advice, he left Ireland (April 
4, 1812), and after some wanderings in Wales 
found rest in a cottage at LynuKuith, then a lonely 
tishing-village. Here he received as a visitor IVTiss 
Hitchener, a Sussex sclioolmistress, whom botli 
before and for a time after his marriage he had 
idealised into all that is most lieroic and exalted in 

womanhood, and with whom he was ere long more ^^OL^Yf^^^^-'^ ^ 

than disenchanted. He wrote a vigorous pamphlet ^ vxt"^ 



on behalf of liberty of printing — the Letter to Lord 
Ellenhorough — amused himself with circulating, by 
means of bottles and boxes set afloat in the Channel 
and by fire-balloon, copies of his satirical poem The 
Devil's Walk and his revolutionary broadsheet 
Declaration of Rights, and was at work on his 
Queen Mah. His servant, having been found post- 
ing up at Barnstaple the offensive broadsheet, was 
imprisoned, and Shelley crossed to Wales. He took 
up his aljode at Tremadoc, where he was much 
interested in the scheme of a great embankment 
against the sea. In October he made (Godwin's 
personal acquaintance in London. During the 
winter he was active in the relief of the suttering 
poor of Tremadoc, studied history and philoso])hy. 



idV^ 



l^«,^>rvxt^ 



G PERCY BVSSHE SHELLEY. 

and added to his manuscript poems. On the night 
of 26th February 1813 an attempt was either really 
made by some vdllain to enter the lonely house of 
Tanyrallt, or Shelley with over-heated fancy con- 
jured up such an outrage. He liastily quitted 
Tremadoc, and, after an excursion to Dublin, Cork, 
and Killarney, once again settled in London. In 
^Ti]ne 1S1.S bis wif e gave birtli tog, dau^tflit.er who 
was named lanthe (married to Mr Esdaile, died 
1876). On Harriet's recovery some stay was made 
at Bracknell in Berkshire. Queen Mah was printed 
for private distribution, its religious and political 
views being considered too hostile to received 
opinions to admit of public circulation. The poem 
sets forth Shelley's youthful conceptions of the past 
history of humanity, its jjresent evils, and future 
progress. It is often crude, often rhetorical, yet 
there is more than a jironuse of poetical power in 
certain passages. In the autumn (1813) — perhaps 
to ol)tain time to settle with creditors — Shelley and 
his household went northward to the English Lakes, 
and thence to Edinburgh, but before the new year 
opened he was settled at Windsor. A1)Out this 
time he wrote a prose dialogue ( published 1814), 
A Refutation of Deism,, designed to prove that 
there is no rda media between Christianity ami 
Atheism. 

In March 1814 Shelley went through the cere- 
mony of marriage with Harriet according to the 
rites of the English Church, probably to set at rest 
any doubts of tlie validity of the Scotch marriage. 
He was endeavouring to raise large sums of money 
on Godwin's behalf, and the marriage may have 
been considered advisable to render certain the 
legitimacy of a future son and heir. Four months 
l ater he had separated from his wife for e ver. 
Tlieir early married happiness had become hope- 
lessly clouded ; an attempt at reconciliation made 
by Shelley in May was rejected. Harriet withdrew 
to Bath. ' It was stated by Miss Clairniont, the 
daughter of (Godwin's second wife, that Shelley 
declared in July 1814 that Harriet had yielded 
herself to a certain Major Kyai i. and Godwin in 
1817 stated in writing that lie had evidence in- 
dependent of Shelley of her unfaithfulness before 
Shelley left her. No such evidence is in our 
possession to-day, and statements to the contrary 
were made by Harriet herself and by several 
persons who knew her well. The division between 
husband and wife, Avliatever its causes, was deep. 
Shelley had become suddenly and passionately 



PERCY BVSSHE SHELLEY. 7 

enanioTired of Godwin's daughter, Mary, a girl o£ 
fine intel lect ^iul_vigoi'Oii!^ r li.nrncfpr. Having in- 
formed Harriet of his resolve to leave her finally, 
and having made arrangements for her material 
comfort, he took flight to the Continent with Mary 
Godwin on 28th July 1814. Miss Clairmont accom- 
panied the fugitives. Shelley was inexperienced 
enough to suppose that Harriet could still regard 
him as a considerate friend, though no longer her 
husband. 

After a journey across France and a short stay 
in Switzerland, Shelley and his companions re- 
turned by the Rhine to England. The last months 
of 1814 Avere full of vexation caused by debts and 
duns. But in January 1815 Shelley's grandfather 
died, and by an arrangement with his father he 
obtained an income of a thousand a year. His 
health unhappily showed the ett'ects of the previous 
year's strain and excitement. He sought rest and 
refreshment in Devon, and in August found a 
home at Bishoi)sgate, on the edge of Windsor 
Forest. In the autumn of 1815 Alastor, his first 
really admirable poem, was written. It tells of 
the ruin of an idealist who, pining for absolute 
love and beauty, shuns human society ; its vision- 
ary landscapes have the largeness and idealitj^ 
characteristic of Shelley. In January 1816 Mary 
gave birth to a son, who was named after her 
father ; but Godwin still held aloof. It was 
decided to try life upon the Continent, and in May 
Shelley and' Mary travelled through France to 
Geneva. Miss Olairmont, whose intrigue with 
Byron was unknown to Shelley ami Mary, accom- 
panied them. On the shores of the Lake of (leneva 
a meeting took place between Byron and Shelley. 
They rowed and sailed together on the lake, and 
Shelley in company with Mary made an excursion 
to Chamouni. In the poem Mout Blanr and the 
Hi/mn tu Intdlectual Beauty we find a poetic 
record of the inipressions of these memorable days. 

In September they were once more in P2ng- 
land. The suicide, following a state of deep 
depression, of Fanny, the half-sister of Mary 
(see Godwin, William), gave Shelley a great 
shock, and this disaster was soon followed by 
the death of Harriet Shelley. For some time 
past Shelley had in vain inquired for her. She 
liad formed an irregular connection with one 
who, it is believed, deserted her. On 10th Decem- 
l)er her body was discovered in the Serj)entine ; 
had she livetl she would soon have given birth to a 



8 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

child. It was another severe shock to Shelley, but 
he always iiiaiiitained that he himself was ' inno- 
cent of ill, either done or intended. ' Free now to 
make Mary his lawful wife, he at once celebrated 
his marriage (30th December 1816). Along Chan- 
cery suit followed, Shelley seeking to obtain pos- 
session of his daughter lanthe and his son Charles 
( born November 1814— died 1826), the Westbrooks 
resisting. At length Lord Eldon gave judgment 
which compromised the matter ; Shelley's opinions 
being sucli as led to immoral and illegal conduct, 
he was disqualified for bringing up his children, 
but he might appoint caretakers and tutors to be 
approved by the court. The blow Avas deeply felt 
by Shelley. While the Chancery aft'air was pro- 
ceeding he was cheered by the friendship of Leigh 
Hunt and of Horace Smith. His home Mas at 
Marlow on the Thames, and here he wrote frag- 
ments of his Prince Athanase, a portion of Rosalind 
and Helen, and his long narrative poem Laon and 
Cythna, designed to sustain men's hopes in ideals 
or freedom and progress during days of political 
reaction. When some few copies of Laon and 
Ci/thna had been issued the publisher withdrew 
it from circulation, and induced Shelley to alter 
certain lines and phrases which might give 
oflence. As thus revised the poem was issued 
with a new title, The Revolt of Islam. During his 
residence at Marlow Shelley worked earnestly and 
systematically in the relief of the poor. He printed 
two pamphlets, A Proposal for Putting Reform to 
the Vote, by 'The Hermit of Marlow,' and A71 
Address to tne People on the Death of the I'rinccss 
Charlotte. In the spring of 1818 it was feared that 
he was threatened with pulmonary disease. He 
decided to seek a southern climate, and in April, 
with Mary, little William, an infant daughter 
Clara (born 2d September 1817), Miss Clairmont 
and her child Allegra (Byron's daughter), he left 
England foi' Italy, never again to see his native 
land. 

In the summer of 1818, at the Baths of Lucca, 
Shelley completed his Rosalind and Helen, and 
made his translation of Plato's Banquet. Grief 
came with the autumn ; little Clara died on 24th 
September at Venice, M'here Shelley liad been 
renewing his companionshi]) with Byron. Memorials 
of this visit to Venice, with an idealised presenta- 
tion of Byron, will be found in the admirable poem 
Julian and Maddalo. He contemplated a tragedy 
of l\tsso, but this was set aside in favour of his 



PERCY BVSSHE SHELLEY. 9 

great lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound, the first 
act of which was written at Este, September-Octo- 
ber 1818. Seeking a warmer climate for the winter, 
he journeyed to Rome, and thence to Naples. His 
letters descriptive of Sotithern Italy are fnll of 
radiance and luminous beauty. In the spring 
(1819) he was again in Rome, and found great 
delight in its classical sculpture and architectural 
remains. Among the ruins of the Baths of Cara- 
calla he wrote the second and third acts of Prome- 
theus. The fourth act^not originally conceived as 
part of the poem — was added before the close of 
the year at Florence. On 7th June 1819 Shelley's 
beloved son William died at Rome. The afflicted 
parents sought the neighbourhood of kind friends 
near Leghorn, and here — at the Villa Valsovano — 
Shelley Mrote the greater part of his dark and 
pathetic tragedy The Cenci. At Leghorn the first 
edition was printed in quarto. The other works 
of this memorable year were written at Florence — 
a prose treatise called A Philosophical View of 
Reform (still unpublished in its entirety) ; a poet- 
ical appeal to his countrymen on the occasion of 
the 'Peterloo' affair, entitled The Mask of Anarchy; 
a grotesque satire suggested by the supposed failure 
of Wordsworth's poetic powers under the blight of 
Toryism — Peter Bell the Tiiird ; a translation of 
The Cyclops of Euripides ; and in addition to these 
some of his noblest lyrical poems, among them the 
matj-niticent Ode to the West Wind . 

On 12tii November 1819 a son was born to 
comfort iiis father and mother, Percy Florence 
(died 5th Decem))er 1889). The climate of Florence 
was found trying, and in January the Shelley 
household mo\'ed to Pisa, where Mas spent the 
greater part of the poet's remaining days. The 
year 1820 was less productive than ]8l"9. The 
charming poetical Letter to Maria Gisborne, a 
spirited translation of the Homeric Hymn to Mer- 
cury, the brilliant fantasy of 7'Ac Witch of Atlas, 
the satirica,l dvAma CEdij) us Tyrannus or Swellfoot 
the Tyrant, which deals not very iiappily with the 
affair of Queen Caroline, are tlie chief writings of 
1820. As the year was closing tlie Shelleys made 
the acquaintance of a beautiful girl, Emilia Yiviani, 
M'ho was confined in the convent of St Anna. To 
Shelley's imagination for a brief time she became 
the incarnation, as it were, of all that is most 
perfect, all that is most radiant in the uni\'erse. 
At sucli a moment he wrote his Epipsychidion, 
which is rather a homage to the ideal as seen in 



10 PERCY BVSSHE SHELLEY. 

womanhood than a poem addressed to an indi- 
vidual woman. It was followed by a remarkable 
piece of prose — the critical study entitled A Defence 
of Poetry. 

A small circle of interesting friends had gathered 
about Shelley at Pisa. Among these were Edward 
Williams, a young lieutenant of dragoons, and his 
wife Jane, to whom many of Shelley's latest lyrics 
were addressed. In the summer of 1821 the Shelleys 
and Williamses had much pleasant intercouse at 
the Baths of San Giuliano. The elegy Adonals. 
.suggested by the death of Keats, was here written ; 
it is Shelley's most finished piece of art . In the 
late summer or autumn he swiftly composed his 
Hellas, a lyrical drama suggested by passing events 
in Greece. Early next year Byron was settled in 
Pisa, and Shelley had also an interesting new com- 
panion in Trelawny, a young man of ardent and 
romantic temper. Shelley worked somewhat tenta- 
tively at his unfinished historical drama Charles I. 
His last great poem, also unfinished, The Triumph 
of Life, was written in his boat near Casa Magni, 
a lonely house on the eastern side of the Bay of 
Spezzia, occupied as a summer residence by the 
Shelleys, together with Edward and Jane Williams. 
On 19tii June Shelley heard of the arrival in Italy 
of Leigli Hunt and his family. He and Williams, 
some days later, set sail for Leghorn. The meeting 
with Hunt was full of joy and hope. On Monday, 
8th July, Shelley and Williams left the port of 
Leghorn with a favourable breeze ; the boat was 
observed at ten miles distance ; then it was lost in 
sudden storm and mist. Dreadful uncertainty for 
a time came upon tlie two widowed women at Casa 
Magni. On 19th July the bodies were found upon 
the shore near Via Keggio. By special permission 
they were consumed by fire in the presence of 
Trelawny, Hunt, and Byron. The ashes of Shelley 
were -placed in a casket, and were afterwards in- 
terred in the Protestant burial-ground at Rome. 

In person Shelley was tall and slight, and if not 
of e.xact formal beauty of face had a countenance 
full of spiritual beauty, radiant with its luminous 
blue eyes. His portrait, painted in Rome by 
Miss (^urran, is the only likeness of Shelley in 
manhood. His poetiy is inspired by an ardent 
passion for truth, an ardent love of liumanity ; it 
expresses desires and regrets with peculiar intensitj% 
but also sets forth a somewhat stoical ideal of 
self-possession, as if to balance the excessive sensi- 
tiveness of its author. The earlier poetry is ag- 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 11 

gressive and doctrinaire, embodying the views and 
visions of Godwin's philosophy ; the later is more 
purely emotional. Shelley's creed, which passed 
at an early stage from deism to atheism, rested in 
his mature years on a spiritual conception of the 
universe. 

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, daughter of 
William GodAvin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and 
wife of the poet Shelley, was l)orn August 30, 1797. 
Her life from 1814 to 1822 was hound up with that 
of Shelley. Her firs t and most impressive nove l, 
Frnnkendcin, had its origin in a proposal of 
Byron's made in 1816 at his villa on the Lake of 
Geneva, that Mary and Shelley, Polidori ( Byron's 
young physician), and Byron himself should write 
each a ghost story. Frankenstein (q.v. ) was pub- 
lished in 1818. The influence of Godwin's ro- 
mances is apparent throughout. Her second tali; . 
Valperga, or the Life and Advent ures of t'ast- 
ruccin. Prince of Lucca. (1823), is a historical 
romance of mediteval Italy. In 1823 she returned 
to England \\ith her son. Her husband's father, 
in granting her an allowance, insisted on the 
suppression of the volume of Shelley's Posthumous 
Poems, edited by her ; and she was obliged to sub- 
mit. The Last Man (1826), ii_romance of the ruin 
of human society by jjestilence, fails to attain sub- 
limity, but we can trace in it with interest ideal- 
ised portraits of some of the illustrious persons 
most intimately known to ber. In Lodor e (1835) 
we read under a disguise the st(try of Shelley's 
alienation from his first wife. Her last novel . 
Falkner, appeared in 1837. She published several 
short tales in the aTiuuals, some of Mhieh have 
been collected and edited by Dr Garnett. Of her 
occasional pieces of verse the most remarkable is 
The Choice. She wrote also many of the lives of 
Italian and Spanish literary men in Lardners 
Cabinet C^jchipo'dia. Her Jourmd of a Six Weeks' 
To»/- (partly by Shelley) tells of the excursion to 
Switzerland in 1814; Ea)nbles in Gernunn/ and 
Italy describes a series of tours in her later years. 
She will be remembered by Frankenstein and her 
admirable notes — in large part biographical — to her 
husband's jjoems. Those who knew her intimately 
valued Mary Shelley for her nobility of character, 
even more than for lier fine intellect. She died 
February 21, 1851, and was buried in Bournemouth. 

The best edition of Shelley's works in verse and prose 
is Mr H. v.. Forman's (8 vols. 1870-80). Mr Forman 
has also given an ailmirahle text of the poetical works 



12 PERCY RYSSHE SHELLEY. 

in two volumes. Mr Rossetti's edition of the poetical 
woiks is of great value. The most complete one-volume 
edition of the iioetical works is that by the present 
writer (Professor Dowdeu), who has also written the fullest 
and most exact Life of Shelley ( 2 vols. 1886 ). Mrs 
Julian Marshall has written a valuable Life of Jlary 
WoUstonecraft Shelley ( 2 vols. 1889 ) ; and there is a 
short Life of her by Mrs W. M. Rossetti. Short lives 
of Shelley have been written by Mr Symonds, Mr Ros- 
setti, Mr Salt, and Mr W. Sharp, and by the poet's 
daughter-in-law. Lady Shelley. Hogg's Life of Shelley 
is excellent for the months at Oxford. Trelawny's 
Records gives a vivid picture of Shelley during his last 
days. Dr Garnett's Belies of Shelley gave for the first 
time many pieces recovered from MSS. The same care- 
ful editor has superintended an admirable selection from 
Shelley's Letters (1882). Mr Forman's Shelley Biblio- 
[H'aphy ( 1882 ) is full and accurate. The publications of 
the ' Shelley Society ' include reprints of several rare 
editions. A Shelleii Concordance is promised by Mr F. S. 
Ellis. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



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